Enter Suicide, Stage Left
by hmsxl
Summary: Some wounds run too deep to ever properly heal... DracoSnapeHarry


TITLE: "Enter Suicide, Stage Left"

AUTHOR: Nixy

A/N: This is the bloody strangest way I have ever come across a fic idea.. I was thisclose to falling asleep and one of my dreamlets was of this scene, and so I got up and started to write. No wonder I never get any sleep. Also, I do not know what the initiation to become a Death Eater is, but everyone else writes a rape-like scene for it, so I am playing with that. No there is no rape scenes in here, there is just mention.

DISCLAIMER: Send all love to JKR. Only the plot is mine.

RATING: R for angst, character death and suicide.

CHARACTERS: Snape, Draco, Harry

SUMMARY: Some wounds run too deep to ever properly heal...

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"What do you really have to live for, Severus?" The voice was a mere whisper in his ear, following him each day and night. Taunting him when he ate dinner amongst the other teachers and students; even in a crowd, he felt alone.  
"Potions?" it scoffed disdainfully. "Or perhaps the lingering hope that one year Albus may just offer you the position as Defence Against the Dark Arts professor? You think too highly of yourself, Severus.  
"You are not that important. You are nothing but a toy to Albus. His spy. Someone who will not be missed if he gets killed within this war." The voice was making his head pound, the once-dull headache becoming so intense that Severus felt as if a war was raging within his cranium.  
He slipped up twice in his Potions class, causing Draco to inquire of his health and then causing Harry, Hermione and Draco to all offer to escort their professor to the hospital wing. Severus declined and threatened to take a large amount of points from both Slytherin and Gryffindor houses if they did not stop asking him questions that did not relate to the potion they were to make that day.

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Taking a break between classes, Severus retired to his office and instead of grading potion's assignments, he buried his head in his hands as the voice was replaced by his worst memories ever. It made him begin to understand why people would rather die than go to Azkaban and be subjected to the Dementor's.  
Images flew through his mind as if he were watching a Muggle-video recording on fast-forward. His parents arguing as he lounged in his room, spelling flies down from the ceiling; when his parents first told him he was going to Hogwarts; when his parents passed on.  
When Sirius and James caught him out on the grass on that exam day which was so long ago but felt as though it were yesterday; Lily embarassing him as he tried to salvage some pride by telling her -more to tell those watching than her- that he did not need a Mudblood like her to help him; James de-pantsing him and every other horrid moment between James, Sirius, Remus and Peter and himself before he graduated from Hogwarts.  
Then there was his initiation into Voldemort's group of loyal followers who called themselves Death Eaters. How he had lot his virginity so un-willingly to more wizards than he dared recall.  
All in all, there had not been a single person he could of turned to. He couldn't turn to Albus with this. It was beyond mortifying; though Severus was sure Albus had some idea...  
Lifting his head from his hands, the voice returned and he knew what he had to do.  
"No one will miss you," it hissed maliciously as Severus began to brew a potion who's ingredients he had long since memorized, knowing that one day it would come in handy.

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Five o'clock rolled around and instead of going to the Great Hall for dinner, Severus left his classroom -and last class of the evening- and retired to his chambers locking and spelling the door so as to ensure he would not be disturbed.  
The potion he had left to brew while he taught was now ready. It had left a tangy smell in his chambers but it did not matter. Soon the scent of a decomposing body would overwhelm it, if no one found him before that.  
He had a note scrawled out in his spidery writing, folded neatly and slipped into an envelope that had nothing but "To Whom It May Concern" scrawled on it.  
Severus looked around his chambers, walking slowly around the perimeter of the room and gently touching everything he passed, as if memorizing it's shape and texture then silently saying goodbye to it.  
Ending up back at his desk, Severus reached down for the vial he had filled only moments before to slightly cool and un-capped it. Steam rose from inside the tiny glass container and Severus' cold and clammy hands shook slightly as he raised the vial to his lips, tipping the glass so the liquid inside poured into his mouth and down his throat.  
Dis-believing of what he had just done, Severus stood in front of his desk, lowering the hand holding the vial and swallowing once, twice.  
There were a few moments when he began to think he had missed a key ingredient but then his vision suddenly swam and he was jolted by a sudden spasm within his body. Dropping the vial to the cold stone dungeon floor, Severus gripped the desk behind him as the room spun and a fever flared up within his body.  
He wanted to take it all back then; he could deal with the past and move on, but it was too late and he briefly wondered if all suicide victims came to their senses once death was slipping it's vine-like grasp around their bodies, hungry for the life within.  
His mouth opened in a silent gasp as he felt his heartbeat speed up to an alarming and painful pace. His skin began to heat up more and he felt a thin sweat break out over his brow. It was taking forever it seemed when it had only been a minute or so. A paralyzing pain seized his stomach and Severus doubled over, unable to utter even the tiniest sound.  
As if in slow motion, he lowered himself to his knees as his body exploded in pain yet all at once a numb coolness chased the pain away and he felt dreamy, sleepy.. ready to welcome that inky darkness.

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From behind Harry's Invisibility Cloak, Draco Malfoy gasped as he saw his professor and Head of House act as if in a fit. Harry clamped his hand around the Slytherin's arm to keep him in place. There was nothing anyone could do.  
The two watched as Severus fell to the ground, body still trembling then all at once just still; one tiny gasp of air escaping the slack mouth that had once spewed out unpleasantries during the professor's every waking moment.  
Darting out from the cloak, Draco skidded to Severus's side, a pale hand brushing dark, greasy locks out of Severus's face. He felt for a pulse and kept murmuring the professor's name. Nothing did a thing. Harry knew they wouldn't be able to bring him back and Draco knew as well, for when he looked up at Harry, his piercing blue eyes were wet with tears.  
Numbed, Harry dropped his cloak and ran from the Slytherin dungeons, summoning Professor McGonagall and Dumbledore from the Great Hall as dinner had just ended. He told what had happened and the teachers came running, the other professor's insisting the rest of the students go back into the Great Hall.  
When they came to Snape's chambers and finally broke the spells that were on the door, Draco had curled up against Severus' corpse, shaking with sobs that he kept choking on. Harry felt a lump in his throat yet he blinked back the tears.  
He had seen too much death in his short life; this school had seen too much destruction. Looking at the broken Slytherin, Harry knew who the next person he was going to save was.  
He couldn't allow someone to fall apart like Severus did; to suffer that bad through life to of ended it all just like that.  
No. Harry wouldn't allow it. Even if he died trying, he was not going to witness another death and most certainly not allow another death to occur within the sacred grounds of the school.

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f i n


End file.
